Medusa Project: PhoneHome
by Cha-Cha-Cheesecake
Summary: Sequel to Double-Cross. Ed and Amy are missing the gang terribly. A girl who can bend shadows is the spotlight of their attention - a candidate for the Medusa Gene, perhaps? Nothing like a phone-home to send them blasting into the past again... CHAP 1 UP


**WARNING: WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ (OR FINISHED READING) DOUBLE-CROSS. I'D GET READING IT IF I WERE YOU.**

Summary: Elliot and Hayley Hancox, formerly Edward and Amy O'Brien, are members of an exclusive team, The Medusa Project. It's been a year since the team were forced to break up for their own protection, and the both of them are missing the crew terribly. Nothing like a phone-home to send them blasting into the past again…

**The Medusa Project:**

**Phone Home**

**Chapter 1: Introductions**

_Nico, Ketty, Dylan, Cal…_

_How are you? It's Ed here. I'm missing you guys… But I suppose you guys aren't going to respond._

"Elliot."

_Y'know, I really miss you all. It feels like a lifetime ago now that we were working in the Medusa Project. But you guys are still so special to me._

"Hey… Elliot."

_I know you all probably think I'm being childish, but… I really want to see you all again, even if it's only for a moment. Seeing pictures of you on our new Facebook and Tumblr accounts aren't the same as being sat next to you and talking freely._

"HEY!" My head jerked up, almost crashing into the girl sat next to me. I let out a small gasp, my heartbeat slowing down slightly.

Amy leaned closer to me, frowning.

"Hey, Ed," she whispered. "Is everything okay?" I nodded, staring into her eyes and switching to telepathy.

_Yes, everything's fine, Amy. Don't say my name out loud. Even though we're alone, Dad and Sandra would still flip if they knew._

_Stuff them. _Her voice sounded cross. _They don't have to deal with all this messy stuff. All they had to do was transfer and slap on a new nametag._

I sighed. Amy had every right to be angry - now we'd changed identities we had a lot less freedom then we used to. Dad and Sandra were a lot stricter about where we went and who with, so after a while we got fed up and decided to stop going out with friends.

But I knew they were just anxious, and still trying their best. Amy was just a bit young and immature to see that.

_Oh, _I'm _immature? That's rich. We're the same age._

"Not technically," I said sternly, out loud. "You're still three years younger then me." She pouted.

"Oh, you know what I mean," she huffed, folding her arms. "We used to be the same age."

"That's different. We were conceived at the same time, but you were frozen for three years. We were only the same age for a few weeks."

"That doesn't stop us from being twins." Her lower lip wobbled slightly. "Even though you're older and I'm younger."

It was hard making Amy understand that because we were twins once didn't necessarily mean we were twins now. Admittedly, it would feel a lot better saying she was my twin, because then I wouldn't feel so responsible for her. But it wasn't like that.

I used to think it was all my fault that our parents had to keep moving. It felt strangely relieving to know it wasn't just me running for my life, even though saying that made me sound and feel like a jackass. Amy was my little sister. I shouldn't be thinking things like that.

_Amy, we're not twins. Not anymore. We've had this conversation a load of times already._

_Oh, for goodness sake! You say this every time, Ed!_

She turned away stubbornly and looked out of the window. It was raining, and Dad and Sandra had taken Kim out to her dancing class. Me and Amy were in the house alone.

We had to share nowadays. The house we lived in now was smaller then our house used to be, and at first Dad wanted Amy to share a room with Kim (sorry, _Evie Hancox_), but it didn't work out - they were prone to fighting. Instead she stayed in a room with me, which was pretty embarrassing at times; but at least then, we had something to talk about.

Like our powers.

"_What do you reckon my Medusa name would be?" _Was a frequent question she asked me when we were discussing the Medusa Project.

"_Hmm… Anaconda?" _I'd often suggest.

"_Nah. Maybe Arbok?"_

"_What kind of snake's that?"_

_"It's the purple snake from Pokemon!"_ That'd have me in stitches every time.

…Those days seemed so far away now…

I was snapped back into reality when Amy stood up, watching rain pour down the window pane angrily.

"I'm going to take a shower," she announced.

"Er, good for you, I guess," I said, raising an eyebrow. She blew a raspberry before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

She'd been like this a lot lately. Snappy, irritable, hard to get along with…

_She reminds me of Dylan, _I thought with a wry smile.

Dylan.

That only made my heart ache more.

I'd lost contact with them a few weeks after we'd all been separated. I don't know what happened. Maybe I maxed out my remote telepathy power or something, because for those weeks I still had it I was like a messenger pigeon, passing on everybody's messages to each other.

_Tell Nico I miss him…_

_Tell Ms Grungy Sweats to stop asking you to pass on icky messages to Nico…_

_Tell Ketty I can't wait to see her again…_

Only a third of the messages were actually to me.

Either way, something happened. One day I woke up and just couldn't make contact. At first I thought it was something to do with the Medutox spray - maybe something had happened to them?

But then I realised, after seeing a few messages thrown back and forth on Facebook.

Nothing was wrong with them. They were living ordinary lives, wondering when I'd get back to them. It was me who was completely screwed up.

I cried that day. Shamelessly, right in front of Amy and Kim, I broke down and started to cry. Kim began to sob as well, frightened by the sight of her big, teenage brother weeping like this. Amy patted my arm, looking a bit shiny-eyed too, and tried to stop Kim from getting Dad and Sandra, knowing they'd be anxious about it.

But she did, and when they came and saw me crying as hard as I was they didn't know what to do. My father always sort of hoped I'd act a bit tougher than I did, but in the end it was him who put his arm around me as I hunched over, sobbing uncontrollably.

"_They… They depended on me," I'd cried. "They depended on me, and I let them down…"_

I could still mind-read - that would always be a part of me, whether I liked it or not - but only like I used to be able to; by looking into somebody's eyes. Which meant apart from social networking sites, me and the others were completely separated.

We were all living apart now. Ketty was living at a different boarding school by herself, Dylan and Mr Fox were situated somewhere in Scotland, and Nico, after a lot of thinking, finally decided where he needed to be.

"_I'm sorry," he'd said, eyes cast downward. "I'm really, really sorry… But I've decided to stay with Avery and Cal." He'd looked up at us all, eyes shining with unshed tears. "They're family I didn't even know I had. How can I throw that away?"_

Part of me wanted to tell him how brilliant and brave he was being, how no matter what he decided we'd have his back, even if that meant the others would laugh at me… part of me was sad that, in the end, he was still on the other side of the world, and that meant in those few weeks we could talk I always ended up waking him up to talk to him.

He'd sound groggy and slightly annoyed whenever I started a conversation, but he'd always patiently listen, and in better moods he'd talk to me too. Sometimes we chatted for quite a long time, actually. Occasionally I'd even forced myself to stay awake until the early hours of the morning so I could talk to Nico while it was _his_ daytime.

I think he liked that more. Not that it matters now.

Sighing, I curled up on my bed and stared at the wall dully. When did life get so boring? When did the colours ebb away and leave me living in nothing but a world of greyscale?

Nobody at school truly understood. I was friends with maybe four or five people at school, mostly hanging around with a guy in my class, Liam Lesser. But nobody was probably because nobody even cares enough to stick around.

I know Amy didn't have too many friends, either. None that she talked about, anyway. Kim had fit in just fine - she was always babbling on about Tasha and Emily and Lucy like they were her life-preservers, always asking if they could come round to tea. Just occasionally, they would, and it was those few times that I realised me and Amy were walking a lonely road.

A road I hoped Kim would never go down.

"I'm back." Amy's voice came from behind me. I turned around just in time to see her in nothing but a towel for her to chuck her pillow at me.

"Don't look, Ed! Ohmigosh, you're such a perv!"

"You snuck up on me!" I said defensively, squeezing my eyes shut as she reached past me to close the curtains. "And don't call me by my name, anyway! It's Elliot!" Instantly the room became enveloped in shadows.

"Ah. While we're thinking about shadows…" Amy padded back over her side of the room and I opened my eyes wearily, glad I could relax now. She hesitated for a moment. "…I think there's a girl in my class at school with the Medusa Gene."

My jaw dropped.

"Y-You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. Deadly serious." I sat back, eyes wide, the news not quite sinking in.

"B-But I thought apart from you and Cal, we were the only ones…"

"That's what I thought. But not anymore. This girl, Melanie Hill… I think she has an ability to… Well, to bend shadows." I furrowed my brow, not completely following.

"I… I don't understand." She huffed impatiently.

"She can move shadows at will. I saw her do it when this kid was about to fall over and drop some equipment in chemistry. It was _sooo_ strange. Basically she stepped on the shadow and the dude just sort of moved in reverse. Sure was lucky it was dark in the science labs that day, otherwise he'd have been screwed for sure."

"So you're saying she could control the movement of the shadows depending on the way she moved her body?" Amy nodded vigorously. She was properly dressed now and flopped down on my bed beside me, wringing her tangly hair dry with a towel.

"Exactly. She had complete control over it. I don't think anyone else saw, but she knows I did and she's been avoiding me ever since the incident. But ohmigosh, it was amazing. Imagine what she could do if she was a part of the team!"

"But you don't actually know if she even _has_ a Medusa Gene?" I questioned. Amy chewed her lip.

"Well, no… But what else could it be? I've never seen a magic trick like that before."

"Maybe you were just imagining things?" I offered. She snorted.

"Yeah, right," she scoffed. "No way was I imagining things. That chick did something, that's for sure. If she didn't, why else would she be avoiding me? People who avoid have something to hide."

I sighed heavily, knowing how this poor kid must be feeling. I remembered after first using my powers to help Nico out I tried to avoid him, although he caught up and confronted me after , Amy wasn't quite confident enough to go waltzing in on this Melanie girl like that.

"Give the kid a break, _Hayley_." I said the name pointedly to remind her. She scowled; Amy always did hate it when I called her Hayley. "I quite remember being in a similar situation as her when I was new to this Medusa thing. It's a scary deal. The poor girl must be frightened out of her wits."

"But what if she's fully aware of the Medusa Gene, in what it is and how it came to be?" Amy pressed on. "Ohmigosh, imagine if her family know too! There could be more people, who could give us more information!" Her eyes shone.

"We're not supposed to be looking for information," I reminded her. "We should be keeping our heads down while the police look into Medusix."

"But this could be an important lead!" she argued. "Come on, Ed, why can't you give it a chance?"

"Because we're supposed to lie low, that's why!" I snapped. Tiredly, I rubbed my temples, feeling my head clouding over with a headache. "Look, A-Amy, I'm sorry…"

"No, I am." She put her arm around me. "I know I shouldn't be so aggressive. But… Well, this could be a sign, couldn't it?"

"Huh?" I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" She spread her hands. "What if this Melanie girl has been under the influence of Medusix?"

**A/N: Hey! So, this is the result of me spazzing until after midnight over the newest Medusa Project book! :D This won't be too AU, hopefully. I just wanna show some of the ideas I had for the aftermath of Double-Cross. Since it was so amazing, and everything!Obviously, you shouldn't be reading this if you haven't already read Double-Cross, cause you'll only be spoiling it for yourself. It's so brilliant x3 YOU MUST READ IT!**

**It's purple and has a picture of Nico holding onto Cal (spoiler spoiler character, whoops) while they're blasting off into the sky *w* IT'S SO EPIC. Kyaa, I can't stop looking at it, even now!**

**Oh, Sophie, Ms McKenzie, you're so smart! But you haven't fooled me! NOW I understand PERFECTLY why Ed could communicate remotely with the Medusas **_**and**_** Amy. It's cause Amy is a Medusa Baby herself! *slaps dumb nut self* Ahh, I feel so smartical right now… x3**

**Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't updated Picking Up The Pieces or Running in a while. D: I've just suddenly lost inspiration atm. But don't worry, I'll cook up something soon. I already have most of chapter one of Running written up in a notebook. It's just… typing… such hard work… *lazyass***

**REVIEW, REVIEW! DO IT FOR THE MEDUSA PROJECT!**

**This was written on the 2****nd**** of June, by the way :D Which is why it's so special. For some reason around where I live they always release the books ages early. XD**


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